On a leafy quiet street right behind the New Canaan train station, a magnificent 1836 Greek Revival house presides over the neighborhood. Quiet and unassuming and yet stately, the house was once home to the famous editor, Maxwell Perkins, and now is the new home to the Onera Foundation. Dedicated to the preservation of historic and significant American architecture, the Onera Foundation opened its doors on October 1, 2025 at 63 Park Street with an inaugural exhibition by artist and preservation architect Jorge Otero-Pailos.
Preserving architecture is an important means to maintain a community’s cultural identity and connection to history, providing educational value and aesthetic diversity, and promoting sustainability and economic growth. Architectural preservation in particular honors the past but also ushers in the future as typically the preservation has to balance historical integrity with up-to-date building requirements for public spaces. Above all, repurposing a building for a new function breathes new life into old structures.
Founded in 2018 by architectural preservationist, David B. Peterson, the Onera Foundation will create and host art and architecture exhibitions, lectures, and panel discussions to engage the public with new perspectives about the preservation of America’s significant architecture. Newly appointed Executive Director Laurence Lafforgue, said, “the foundation was created to raise awareness that American architecture is a vital part of the nation’s culture, worth protecting in the same way we do for other national treasures.”
To inaugurate its new building, the Onera Foundation will present Treaties on De-Fences — a major exhibition by artist and preservation architect Jorge Otero-Pailos, a Spanish-American artist and preservation architect. The show features a series of artworks exploring the Eero Saarinen-designed former US Embassy in Oslo. The sculptures are created out of the steel fences that once surrounded the U.S. Embassy in Oslo.
Before coming to the Onera Foundation, Treaties on De-Fences was exhibited in 2024 at the National Museum of American Diplomacy in Washington D.C.; while large sculptures from the same body of work were exhibited on Park Avenue in New York City under the auspices of the Fund for Park Avenue (Side of Culture covered the George Rickey show in 2021); and now, some of the biggest sculptures are on view at the nearby Jay Heritage Center in Rye, New York. Mr. Otero-Pailos is also the director and professor of Historic Preservation at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), where he directs the Columbia Preservation Technology Lab and he founded the first Ph.D. program in Historic Preservation in the U.S.
A second architecture exhibition at Onera examines the US embassies of the Cold War and their ties to New Canaan modern architects. Inspired by David Peterson’s award-winning book, US Embassies of the Cold War: the Architecture of Democracy, Diplomacy and Defense, the exhibition is about the US State Department’s initiative to build modern embassies around the world during the Cold War. Designed by some of the world’s most famous architects, including: Eero Saarinen, Marcel Breuer, and Walter Gropius, the embassies were places for an emerging programming focus: cultural diplomacy often referred to as “soft power.” Today, many of the original Cold War US embassies have been decommissioned and sold so Mr. Peterson’s book with its rare images is a form of preservation. The exhibition itself highlights the connection between two embassy architects in particular, Marcel Breuer and John Johansen , and New Cannan, where they also each created iconic homes.
In many ways, New Canaan is a great context for the new home for the Onera Foundation. As mentioned, New Canaan is a well-known center for midcentury modern homes and cultural sites, including The Glass House by Philip Johnson and Grace Farms Foundation (which SideofCulture covered in 2022), and New Canaan is a place that celebrates its mid modernism legacy.
The opening of the Onera Foundation coincides with October4design, New Canaan’s annual celebration of art, architecture, and design, one of the largest of its kind in the country. Organized by the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society, October4design brings together New Canaan’s diverse and creative community and opens its doors to offer a peek into what gives this town its distinct character.
As part of its public launch and of New Canaan’s October4design programming, the Onera Foundation has organized two major, free public programs: Eero Saarinen’s Legacy Abroad on October 15 from 5:30 to 7:30 and The Harvard Five Legacy: From Modern Homes to Diplomatic Landmarks on October 21 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. In addition to this at the nearby Jay Heritage Center, visitors can see the exhibit Analogue Sites which is a series of steel sculptures by Spanish-American artist and preservationist Jorge Otero-Pailos, created in 2019 from fencing salvaged during the preservation of the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, designed by Finnish-American modernist master Eero Saarinen.
In addition to presenting creative programming that deepens the public’s understanding of architecture preservation in its New Canaan exhibition space, the Onera Foundation supports education by funding the Onera Prize at Columbia University – an annual $25,000 prize that supports students graduating from the M.S. Historic Preservation program to test new preservation theories and technologies in practice.
The house itself is also a place of preservation and history and was created 162 years ago. Built originally by Hiram Crissey, a skilled carpenter and deacon of the New Canaan Congregational Church, 63 Park Street has served as a boarding house, grammar school, and, most notably, the home of famed editor Maxwell E. Perkins (1924–1947), who discovered literary greats like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Virginia Woolf.
Under the previous ownership of landscape architect Richard Bergmann and his wife, Sandra, the house was restored and enhanced by a modernist garden – now included in the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Gardens. While owned by the Bergmanns, the home also became Connecticut’s first Literary Landmark in 2002 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. In 2018, the Onera Foundation bought the house and transformed it into a beautiful public exhibition space across two floors highlighting historic elements of the house. They also collaborated with Design Within Reach on a selection of furnishings by Eero Saarinen, Marcel Breuer and other midcentury designers. Within a short walk, you can reach the New Canaan train station and the main shopping street with restaurants, shops and bars.
By Victoria Larson, publisher, Side of Culture
